Now more than ever, campus security has become an issue that school officials must address with the utmost degree of precision, efficiency, and immediacy. The nature of recent events demands that administrators ensure, first and foremost, that unauthorized individuals are not on campus during school hours. However, in its blind effort to maximize campus security, the school administration has proven once again that it exerts its resources ineffectively and unwisely—aiming at the right issues, but in all the wrong ways.

The issues may have, in part, to do with the difficulty of watching over some 2,400 students with one officer on active patrol—campus security will continue to evade us so long as we remain so grossly understaffed. They may have, in part, to do with the staggering size of the campus—a large campus size requires heightened patrolling for even comparable security. They may have, in part, to do with the false sense of added safety that the “scanning system” or prison-bar gates lend school officials—there are simple ways around the measures meant to track and control campus population.

Of all these misguided exertions, the locking of the student parking lot is by far the most egregious. Of course, it seems only sensible—if most pedestrian students cannot freely leave and reenter campus during school hours, then driving students should be deprived of the same liberty. And while that justification is suitable for “most” students, that nevertheless leaves a minority disenfranchised by an administration taking liberties where it should not.

Take, for instance, my situation. My first period is listed as “College Class,” because there were no open classes at high school left for me to take. In an effort to fulfill the academic obligation implied by this class listing, I actually have enrolled in a course at SMC—quite fittingly, one that meets in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays (I miss half of these class sessions for second period, but made sure first that my professor doesn’t care much about attendance). So I return to campus at 9:50, only to find the student parking lot locked. So, I hunt for street parking. There are usually some spaces open, so I park across the street from campus with just enough time to race into class and make it in for third period before the bell rings.

And then, when the day is done, I return to my car to find a parking ticket in the amount of $30, pinned courteously against the windshield. Thus, I am left with no legal solutions whatsoever to my predicament, merely because my schedule demands that I attend a morning college class, and I have to drive myself to school.

And I am not the only student, of course, damaged by the locked lots. Any driving student without a full schedule needs to be able to travel on and off campus between school’s opening and closing.

Consider, as well, that any adult seeking access to campus could just as easily find street parking and stay for less than the allotted two hours, doing just as much damage as if he parked in the lot.

The effort, though well-meaning, does nothing for campus security, and great offense to a minority of students perfectly undeserving of such abuses.